Elongated Man
Encyclopedia : E : EL : ELO : Elongated Man
The Elongated Man is a fictional comic book superhero in the DC universe. He is a reserve member of the Justice League. His first appearance was The Flash (vol. 2) #112 (May 12, 1960). He was partially created by Julius Schwartz, who noted he only created the character because he didn't realize DC Comics had acquired Plastic Man in 1956.
The character has won and been nominated for several awards over the years, including winning the 1961 Alley Award for Best Supporting Character.
- 1 Character history
- 2 Powers and abilities
- 3 Other media
- 4
Character history
According to his origin, as a teenager, Ralph Dibny adored contortionists, or people who displayed feats of agility and suppleness. He learned that many of these body-benders drank gingold juice. Ralph set to work learning chemistry and developed a super-concentrated extract of the stuff, which gave him his stretching powers.Ralph Dibny was one of the earliest Silver Age DC heroes to reveal his secret identity to the public, and also one of the first to marry his love interest. He and his wife Sue Dibny became effectively partners, solving mysteries and participating in Justice League adventures as equals. They were also notable in having a stable, happy, and relatively trouble-free marriage — an anomaly in the soap operatic annals of comic books. Fans of the characters often referred to Ralph and Sue as the "Nick and Nora Charles of the super-hero set" (a reference to The Thin Man movies).
Identity Crisis
In Identity Crisis #1, published in June 2004, tragedy struck these beloved, if second-tier, characters when Sue was murdered in the Dibny home just before she was going to surprise her husband with the news that she was pregnant. Ralph and Sue also appeared as members of the Justice League offshoot the Super Buddies in the miniseries Formerly Known as the Justice League and its sequel story arc "I Can't Believe It's Not The Justice League". published in JLA: Classified #4-9. The latter arc was produced before Identity Crisis, but published afterwards. Unfortunately, a running joke in "I Can't Believe It's Not The Justice League" involves the possibility of Sue's pregnancy, and seems somewhat morbid after Identity Crisis.Crisis of Conscience
Ralph later appeared in the JLA storyarc Crisis of Conscience. By this time, Ralph has stopped taking extracts of gingold daily, and lost his stretching abilities. The story revolves around the Silver Age Secret Society of Super-Villains regaining the memories mindwiped by Zatanna, and their revenge against the Satellite era League's loved ones. After the defeat of villains, the League again steps up to vote for whether or not to erase the villains memories, but Zatanna removes herself from the equation, disappearing from the scene (though she does remove the secret IDs of the Justice League while the villains are in custody). The questionable morals of the League serve as the foundation for the company-wide crossover Infinite Crisis.52
At the beginning of 2006's 52 weekly series, Ralph is so distraught over the death of his wife Sue that he is contemplating suicide. Just before shooting himself in the head, a voice message alerts Ralph to someone having vandalized his wife's grave. He goes to the site of the grave to find an upside down version of Superman's "S", the Kryptonian symbol for resurrection, spray-painted on Sue's tombstone. Then he visits Cassandra Sandsmark, believing she may know what is going on.A week and five days later, he meets Cassie and various other members of what seems to be a cult she's joined. The cult seems to be based around the belief that Conner Kent and perhaps others will be resurrected. They then submerge him willingly into a large pool, claiming it will show him something which proves their belief. When he emerges, however, he is distraught to find that they have stolen his wedding ring.
Two weeks and six days later, Ralph arrives at the apartment of Booster Gold in Metropolis. Ralph tells Booster he has trailed the "Cult of Conner" to Metropolis. Booster, however, is busy at the time and cannot give Ralph his full atention. The two get into a fight when Ralph, enraged, asks Booster why he didn't tell Ralph that Sue was going to die. Booster tries to defend himself, explaining that he didn't honestly know. Later, after Bob "Manthrax" Castell, a man Booster paid to pose as a villain exposes Booster to the media, Ralph follows by further insulting Booster and putting his credibility in question, with cameras rolling and his rant being played live on TV. As he finishs, Ralph not only blames the death of Sue on Booster, but also the death of Booster's best friend, Ted Kord.Five days later, Ralph goes to Star City to look for the cult's latest base of operations with the aid of Green Arrow. The cult has left by the time they arrive. The story is ongoing.
One Year Later
So far, Ralph has been missing in the 1 year later storylines, but he has been mentioned in passing. Batman, while recruiting detective Jason Bard, to investigate the identity of a killer for him, mentions that he would go to Ralph Dibny, but he is, "unavailable". This is said with some emphasis, but it is unclear what Batman means and it is not elaborated on further.Powers and abilities
Currently, Ralph Dibny is powerless. As revealed in 52, following the events of Identity Crisis, Dibny has ceased drinking Gingold, thus losing his powers, stating "I've lost my taste for gingold."As his name suggests, the Elongated Man can stretch his limbs and body to super-human lengths and sizes. These stretching powers grant the Elongated Man heightened agility enabling him flexibility and coordination that is extraordinarily beyond the natural limits of the human body. He can contort his body into various positions and sizes impossible for ordinary humans, such as being entirely flat so that he can slip under a door, or using his fingers to pick conventional locks. He can also use it for disguise by changing the shape of his face, although this is painful and difficult for him. Ralph's physiology has greater physical limitations than Plastic-Man; there is a limit to how far he can stretch his finite bodily mass.
The Elongated Man's powers also greatly augments his durability. He is largely able to withstand corrosives, punctures and concussions without sustaining injury. It has been demonstrated that he is resistant to high velocities that would kill an ordinary person and that he is also more resistant to blasts from energy weapons that would kill ordinary humans. His physiology is more like that of an ordinary human than Plastic Man and as a result he does not share Plastic Man's nigh invulnerability.
The Elongated Man gets his abilities from a combination of drinking a soda named Gingold that contains the extract of a (fictional) fruit called gingo and his natural latent metahuman physiology. The extract interacts with a latent gene that Ralph has, thus activating his super powers. It was revealed in Invasion #3 that it was a metagene reaction to the Gingold elixir that had always provided him with his stretching powers, meaning that he is, in fact, a metahuman and that an ordinary human would not develop such powers through ingesting the extract. Also, most people are extremely allergic to highly concentrated Gingold. The only other hero in the DCU who uses Gingold is Stretch a member of Hero Hotline who has been using the compound since the 1940's. Due to prolonged Gingold abuse Stretch had problems maintaining human form.
The Elongated Man is also professionally trained as a detective and is highly skilled in deductive reasoning. Often considered one of the most brilliant detectives in the DC Universe, his name is also a play on The Thin Man detective serial. He is a talented amateur chemist as well.
Ralph Dibny is a native English speaker, but can also speak French. He does not speak Interlac, but can understand it well enough to translate.
Other media
The Elongated Man, as depicted in Justice League Unlimited
The character has appeared in a few episodes of Justice League Unlimited voiced by Jeremy Piven. This is the first television series in which he has made any appearance.
In Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, Dibny is mentioned as a man in a bar who was reminiscing about the Silver Age and laughing so hard that his face was sagging and his jaw dropped to the floor.
External links
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.
